Life isn't Enough
by Tahkaullus01
Summary: It's not enough just to live. It's not enough to be happy while she isn't. That's why I'm going back. I, Bill (never Billy or William) Caulfield, am going to Blackwell Academy, I'm going to save Chloe Price, and no rich snot, no psycho photographer, no town-destroying storm is going to get in my way!


**A/N: Hello, everyone! Okay, first things first, Episode 5 killed me. Kind of annoyed that Jefferson wasn't Sean Prescott in disguise but that's okay in the long run. Why? Because I literally had to back away from my computer and argue over the points with myself over which choice to make with that final hurdle to leap through! I've seen a few saying that it was Mass Effect 3 all over again but I completely disagree with them…even though I kinda/sorta saw this end coming along with probably half the fanbase.**

 **To that end I've had this prologue ready to go since I finished Episode 4 all the way back in August. So now, we shall begin. And please, bear with me, it's been a while since I wrote anything.**

 **Also, I want to try something a little different from the usual setup. Read the A/N at the end for further details (AFTER you've read the chapter you nosy little 'uns!).**

 **Anyway, disclaimer (grumble): Life is Strange is in no way or shape mine. If it was…I wouldn't change a goddamned thing!**

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 **It All Starts With a Choice**  


10th August, 2036

When we're kids they tell us life will throw many a difficult choice at us which we will have to navigate and live with the consequences of afterwards. Because we're young we think we can take it, we think we're invincible and as such there's nothing that can cripple us. But the truth is when the choice lands at our feet we almost always freeze up in indecision – should I do this? Could I manage that? Would they believe it if I do that? On and on it goes.

We're no better afterwards when the choice has been made because then we're left asking if there was something we could've done differently. For a teenager bordering on adulthood this is a near constant and nobody has ever been free of this process.

But there has been one who was allowed a do over of sorts. Max Caulfield is her name, and during the twilight of her teen years, she discovered by pure chance that she had the ability to rewind time. Able to change her choices, make a better outcome of her actions. Using it she was able to save a friend's life, negotiate information out of dangerous people, and sometimes just play the odd practical joke then go back so that it never happened in the first place.

However, the ability to cheat responsibility can only last so long. Max would learn that even she can't change some things, that going backwards does not always equal a more positive forward march. This lesson began to set in on October 8th 2013, when her power failed her in an attempt to save a friend from herself. But it really hammered home two days later when, during the investigation of a student who had gone missing, she was drugged, abused, and forced to witness the murder of someone she loved – possibly was in love with – at the hands of someone she failed to suspect.

That event, I now realise, coloured her life afterwards. The indecisiveness in her diary entries fades away after this event, replaced by firm action, but the feeling, the emotion that I usually felt coming from the words before is gone. It's like a switch was flipped to protect herself and, going by what she did after this traumatic event went down, she never flipped back. At least not until I was born.

I hope that I made things better for her, even as a kid I knew there was something wrong with her; she always seemed so sad. She loves me, I don't doubt that, but I don't think she has it in her to be happy anymore. About the only times I remember her smiling is when I brought my friends round and we played at being space invaders in the many playgrounds dotted around London (Yep, not Oregon, London, although I know I was born on that side of the pond). But the smile is half-hearted and far away, like she's remembering another time, a better time, and then I feel rotten because my fun with my friends is hurting her.

For a long time, I couldn't fathom it. Today she's one of the best out there, having done everything from nature shots to fancy soiree evenings; we're lucky really, Max made a lot of friends at Blackwell, including the rich daughter of the Chases. We've had the monetary backing of Chase Space for nearly twelve years now, despite her best efforts to deny them. The one thing she won't cover however is war-documentary, her reasoning being she sees enough sadness already. I didn't understand for years, and when puberty hit and the hormones began directing my attitude it sometimes made me a little angry. What did she have to moan about? Her life was near perfect! What about me? How does an aspiring writer get noticed?

I finally learned the truth during my routine poking around in her room for stuff of interest (yes I'm a snoop and hella proud of it!), when I checked through her closet for dirt. I found an old box containing what I could only guess was memorabilia from her youth, including a small snow globe with a doe in it, a bottle of half-used blue hair-dye (hard to imagine her with anything but that brown mop on her head), an old instant camera, and a worn black covered diary.

There are any number of reasons I should have put them back, I even argued them for a few minutes…but I was raised by Max Caulfield, the 'Blackwell Ninja' (as Aunt Juliet always calls her when she and Aunt Dana come over with their respective man-toys in tow), and so into the diary I went…

Sometimes I wish I hadn't.

A lot of it was your usual teenage drama.

Some of it was her concerns about her future.

And one week in particular taught me more about the woman who is my mother than anything else ever will…or that would be the case if she hadn't walked in on me whilst I was halfway through re-reading the final entries.

I expected her to shout up a storm (get it? Storm? No?), I'd have deserved it. But instead she just sat down on the bed with me and explained about the bit I still didn't understand: her rewind, not that she had much to add, she never really grasped it either and after that week it was like it had never existed to begin with.

The one thing she wouldn't talk about though was Chloe, I tried again and again to steer the conversation that way but it never happened. She always found a way to turn the subject back to time travel, or the storm, or how her time travel created the storm in the first place. After a while I just gave up on asking her…

But not on looking further for myself. I wanted to know who this Chloe person was, how she fit in to my mother's life, why even the slightest mention of her causes such pain in her that I didn't believe was physically or emotionally possible…well, maybe that last one wasn't so hard to figure out: I've known about my mother's inclination towards the fairer sex since my tweens. I also know she hasn't been with anyone since, politely but firmly refusing anyone who asks her for more than a cup of coffee, saying that she's taken.

All these years and she still misses her…

That more than anything made me want to know this Chloe, the entries in the diary telling me some things; that she was a punk, had died her hair blue (explaining the bottle), was big on the weed and booze, and had an even shorter temper than mine. But that isn't enough, I want to know what bands she liked, what she and my mother did together when they weren't Nancy and Veronica (besides the…interesting pool escapade), what pissed her off, what made her laugh…I wanted to know everything about the woman who, if she'd lived, I'd be calling mother too…or maybe Blue-mama, can't see her ever stopping with the dye.

An album of memories isn't enough.

Maybe it was that wish that caused it, or a genetic thing that'd been lying dormant finally activated by my surge of emotions, or hell maybe I was about to die and something stepped in. I don't know anymore, the details elude me now, but really those details don't mean a damn thing. I just know that one day I woke up to my mother calling for me to get up with promise of 'Eggs n' Bakey', and stretching out my left arm. Next thing I know, the clock's going off again and mom's still calling me for the morning pig.

That's right, I have the rewind now.

What followed was a lot of work hiding the fact that the family superpower had been passed on as I tried to work out all the things she hinted at in her diary. Not much to go on but it got me started.

Which brings me to now, in my room with my mom's diary, Blue-mama's bullet necklace around my neck now, and a Polaroid photo in my hands.

"William!" Mom's calling me for the fourth time now, "Hurry up! We have to get to the airport soon!"

I could have laughed at the irony: I applied for Blackwell months before this mission started, and yet here I am about to take a shortcut. Maybe I could finish my course there?

 _No!_ I slap myself as I grab hold of my suitcase and laptop bag (yes they survived to the 2030s), slipping the diary inside. _This isn't about you! You're going back for her, to save her and Mom. Your needs can wait._

That squared, I open the door and call out to her, "I'll be there in a sec, Mom! My books and computer are fighting again!"

"Just leave some of them here, I'll post them up to you."

 _Oh poor, naïve mother who should have used Amazon more as a kid. Post is evil._ I want to play our game, old vs new, one more time before I go, or have one of our beautiful debates of words vs images, or hell even just to hug her one more time…but the sooner I get this done the better.

So when I close the door I lock it tight and focus my attention on the photo that I've slightly creased: a photo of the Blackwell Photography class, 2013. Mom was still a kid, still finding her way…still happy.

I focus on that, letting the image consume me as everything else turns to white noise. It's just a ringing at first, growing louder and louder as I try to find the emotions held within this one shot…and then I can hear them, voices and laughter, snobby pride and quiet uncertainty, ambition and fear…all of them are here in this one photo…

 _And here…we…go._

"William!"

 _Goodbye Mom. You were the best._

"William Caulfield, get down here right now!"

 _Even if you don't know me when you see me…everything I do is for you._

"William open the door!"

"I love you Mom."

And then I let the rewind take me and all fades to the white flash of a camera…

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 **A/N: So yeah, the son of Max Caulfield is on his way. Yes he is named William for William Price and yes he is Max's biological son. How the hell does that work if I'm setting up for a girls-only (or rather Chloe-only) Max? Well that brings us to the bit I wanted you all to stick around for.**

 **I want you to tell me what comes next! That's right, for this whole story you guys are the author as much as I am.**

The set up is this: Bill Caulfield (never William or Billy) arrives in Arcadia Bay a month ahead of things. So naturally he has to stay low until the time comes for him to manipulate things. As the prologue stated he's a budding writer who wants to make it big like his photographer mother Max. He also has the rewind ability like his mother, though he's had it for considerably longer (a few months) and has learned a few extra tricks along the way. Now he's come back in time to save 'Blue-Mama' Chloe Price, or die in a violent storm trying.

 **Some ground rules though.**

1\. No outing Jefferson on the very first day. While that would probably save a lot of time it obviously doesn't make for a very cool story which is what I want you guys to help me create. Remember, Bill's goal is to save Chloe from dying. Max can do the Jefferson bit just fine on her own.

2\. The plot for the chapters must be sent to me in PM form. I will not be accepting ideas from reviewers, though don't let that stop you from telling us if our story is making any sense.

3\. No OPing of Bill. Yes I want his powers to be more developed than Max's, but that doesn't mean they're limitless.

4\. Ideas sent to me must be an outline only. This is to help me meld ideas from multiple contributions together to make the most interesting chapter possible.

5\. This is all in good fun. If I don't choose your idea don't get mad. I will try to use as many ideas as possible, but there will be points where I have to just stop and say 'that's all I need. Now let's start writing.' Just keep sending me ideas as the story progresses and maybe I'll use one in my next chapter.

 **Right, so now with that out of the way, here's the basic outline of what I'm looking for in the first chapter:**

A basic arrival scene: Bill's used a more advanced version of Max's 'Photo Jump' ability (going into photos to arrive at a different time), consider if that'll have an effect on him or not. Bill gets set up in Blackwell (a good chance for him to use his powers here), and a small tour around Arcadia Bay. Where he goes, what he does, who he talks to is all up to you guys. Events can span a couple of days or all be crammed into one. Remember he's arriving a full month before it all goes down.

 **I'll begin writing as soon as I think I have enough responses.**


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